Killer robots and a revolution in warfare

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– Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

They have no fear, they never tire, they are not upset when the soldier next to them gets blown to pieces. Their morale doesn’t suffer by having to do, again and again, the jobs known in the military as the Three Ds – dull, dirty and dangerous.

They are military robots and their rapidly increasing numbers and growing sophistication may herald the end of thousands of years of human monopoly on fighting war. “Science fiction is moving to the battlefield. The future is upon us,” as Brookings scholar Peter Singer put it to a conference of experts at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania this month.

Singer just published Wired For War – the Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, a book that traces the rise of the machines and predicts that in future wars they will not only play greater roles in executing missions but also in planning them.

Numbers reflect the explosive growth of robotic systems. The U.S. forces that stormed into Iraq in 2003 had no robots on the ground. There were none in Afghanistan either. Now those two wars are fought with the help of an estimated 12,000 ground-based robots and 7,000 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the technical term for drone, or robotic aircraft.

Ground-based robots in Iraq have saved hundreds of lives in Iraq, defusing improvised explosive devices, which account for more than 40 percent of U.S. casualties. The first armed robot was deployed in Iraq in 2007 and it is as lethal as its acronym is long: Special Weapons Observation Remote Reconnaissance Direct Action System (SWORDS). Its mounted M249 machinegun can hit a target more than 3,000 feet away with pin-point precision.

From the air, the best-known UAV, the Predator, has killed dozens of insurgent leaders – as well as scores of civilians whose death has prompted protests both from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Predators are flown by operators sitting in front of television monitors in cubicles at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, 8,000 miles from Afghanistan and Taliban sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan. The cubicle pilots in Nevada run no physical risks whatever, a novelty for men engaged in war.

TECHNOLOGY RUNS AHEAD OF ETHICS

Reducing risk, and casualties, is at the heart of the drive for more and better robots. Ultimately, that means “fully autonomous engagement without human intervention,” according to an Army communication to robot designers. In other words, computer programs, not a remote human operator, would decide when to open fire. What worries some experts is that technology is running ahead of deliberations of ethical and legal questions.

Robotics research and development in the U.S. received a big push from Congress in 2001, when it set two ambitious goals: by 2010, a third of the country’s long-range attack aircraft should be unmanned; and by 2015 one third of America’s ground combat vehicles. Neither goal is likely to be met but the deadline pushed non-technological considerations to the sidelines.

A recent study prepared for the Office of Naval Research by a team from the California Polytechnic State University said that robot ethics had not received the attention it deserved because of a “rush to market” mentality and the “common misconception” that robots will do only what they have been programmed to do.

“Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to the time when computers were simpler and their programs could be written and understood by a single person,” the study says. “Now programs with millions of lines of code are written by teams of programmers, none of whom knows the entire program; hence, no individual can predict the effect of a given command with absolute certainty since portions of programs may interact in unexpected, untested ways.”

That’s what might have happened during an exercise in South Africa in 2007, when a robot anti-aircraft gun sprayed hundreds of rounds of cannon shell around its position, killing nine soldiers and injuring 14.

Beyond isolated accidents, there are deeper problems that have yet to be solved. How do you get a robot to tell an insurgent from an innocent? Can you program the Laws of War and the Rules of Engagement into a robot? Can you imbue a robot with his country’s culture? If something goes wrong, resulting in the death of civilians, who will be held responsible?

The robot’s manufacturer? The designers? Software programmers? The commanding officer in whose unit the robot operates? Or the U.S. president who in some cases authorizes attacks? (Barack Obama has given the green light to a string of Predator strikes into Pakistan).

While the United States has deployed more military robots – on land, in the air and at sea – than any other country, it is not alone in building them. More than 40 countries, including potential adversaries such as China, are working on robotics technology. Which leaves one to wonder how the ability to send large numbers of robots, and fewer soldiers, to war will affect political decisions on force versus diplomacy.

You need to be an optimist to think that political leaders will opt for negotiation over war once combat casualties come home not in flag-decked coffins but in packing crates destined for the robot repair shop.

The metal sword changed combat. Armor changed combat. Tanks changed combat. Planes changed combat. Computers changed combat. More and more from the moment man picked up a rock and killed his neighbor we have been trying to distance ourselves from the act of killing. Once upon a time it was all hand to hand combat. Today we can sit in our chair far away and send a Predator into combat and engage targets. I doubt that robots will replace boots on the ground anytime soon. Let’s face it a foot soldier is way cheaper than a sophisticated robot that could actually replace him functionally. However, drone fighters and bombers and attack helicopters are near. It is a large investment to train pilots and taking the human out of the plane ups its ability to maneuver. Drone combat ships are also near. If we can control the cruise missiles that blasted Bagdad from a base in Omaha, planes and ships should be a breeze. Rescue vehicles are being tested now that will be charged with removing the wounded and the dead. As for your morals, war has few. Those civilians killed by the Predator strikes were not done by some AI. That fire order came from a person. It is the nature of the battle we face in places like the Middle East that the combatants will be mingled with non-combatants. If the non-combatants do not leave the areas where combatants congregate they take the risk of being caught up in the fire. And that occurs whether it is a Predator or infantry doing the firing. In my opinion our society’s moral expectations have exceeded our militaries capabilities. Robots will not fix this inequity.

This dodges two questions, first “What are the ethics of war?” and two “Do ethics trump ‘winning’?” (I know that winning is poorly defined in most of these wars these days).

I completely disagree that “one engineer cannot know the whole program.” This is false on its face, but its also true that too many people see the ineptitude of someone like Microsoft’s attempt at an operating system or a Blizzard’s attempt at a video game and thing ‘oh these things are so complicated its impossible to get them correct.’ and that isn’t true. If it were true then it would be impossible to drive your car (3.8 million lines of code according to BMW) or fly in a passenger plane (10 million lines of code in the avionics estimated by Airbus). Engineering reliable software is not an art, its a science and its fairly well known.

So that leaves us with the ‘so what’ defense? What have robots really changed? Well one they have reduced casualties on the robot operator side so you could argue they have lowered the threshold before someone might engage in a war or war like activities. Second, autonomous robots with lethal action capability will be just as dangerous as mine fields were, and harder to dispose of. And third, they offer a huge loophole when it comes to assassination and other covert operations because if they are widely available how do you prove who was commanding them?

The bottom line is that technology changes warfare. Military technology seems to lag behind civilian technology by 5 – 10 years. The change in computers and capability in the last 10 years has been dramatic, expect dramatic changes in the military’s use of that technology.

What if the robots rise against the humans and hook up humans to life support systems and generate an ideal world in our minds? Will this end the global recession, Somali pirating, genocide and starvation in Africa and radical Islamic terror?

“Robot Ethics” is a spurious argument put forth by people who want to imagine robots as radically different from humans and manned vehicles. A Predator is a weapons delivery platform controlled by a human, the same as every other aircraft we operate. Ultimately, there is always a person behind every robotic system the US military operates, and ultimately America is responsible for their actions.

The CalPoly study claiming that robots are unpredictable is an embarrassment to their institution; robots may be complex, but they do everything for a reason, and confusing complex programming with irrational behavior is like believing in alchemy.

What we fail to realize is that automated weapons have been in operation ever since the proximity fuze was designed during World War II. Since then they have gotten dramatically smarter and more capable, but every behavior of a weapon was caused by a human controller, and it is ridiculous to think otherwise.

I see robot development for warfare by nations no different from IED development by insurgents. Best if nations and people embrace change since there is no turning back as far as technology development is concerned.

The weak point of a robot is the communications system linking it to human users or possibly a large computer stationary system. If we break the link and let robots respond on their own, then we would have many problems. So I see the value of robots as human extensions. It is probably a good investment, too. There are lots of spin-off industries that can emerge from this. People are getting elderly, for instance. We need better robotic mobility devices. There are visually impaired people. Robotics can help us develop equipment to convert graphical information into maybe skin sensation. This is an excellent field to focus our military developments.

What happens when two enemy UAVs encounter each other? What happens in 50 years when those UAVs are actually capable of evading and fighting each other? Is it a declaration of war to kill another countries unmanned drone with their own unmanned drone? Or will it just be laughed off? Jolly good joke, nothing need be done?

Cruise missile A is built for defense. Cruise Missile A is stolen by radical sect and used to kill innocents. Both the radical sect, and the country that originally built a weapon to be used to kill, are at fault. To make a “killer” robot and have it go “haywire”, does not displace the fault that a country infact, made a robot for the intent to kill. All because the “robot” was indifferent towards what or who it killed, the blame falls squarely on the one who ordered the robot produced, and ordered the robot to be used. You can also try to court-martial the robot if you want.

These drones should be used to fight pirates off the coast in Somalia. Very simply, shoot a missile and sink the mother ship and let the pirates make their way home in their dinghies. How many mother ships would have to be sunk before no one would be willing to volunteer to highjack ships??? I predict (3) three.
Respectfully,
Sig Gergens

If the robots were gradually, over time, programmed to destroy only enemy robots, while avoiding any harm to humans, we might finally hope to overcome the very worst inherited characteristic of human beings: the desire (or is it an instinct?) to wage war.

This computer response system, without a controller person issuing the strike, reminds me of the berserk computer-driven trading schemes which have plagued Wall Street for quite a while now. — Shoot-to-kill decisions should not be made by a programmed robot. — Somebody has been watching too many sci-fi movies.

This is very interesting and all…but why doesn’t anyone ask the question as to why we, as a species, put so much effort into improving the art of war? Why don’t we purse other things (such as: health, welfare, self-improvement, growth – spiritual, emotional & mental) with equal or greater vigor? Is it possible man is destined to destroy himself, his planet and his better nature? Just some final food for thought: but for just a fraction of what we spend on this B.S. we could have decent quality healthcare for every American man, woman & child.

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If robotic weapons are completely autonomous or can act without prior human go-ahead for specific tasks, I think it’s a certainty that we’ll have more cases of “undesired” behavior. When the code base gets large enough, it’s a practical impossibility to test all possible input combinations and map them to output actions. We can’t do it in computer operating systems and we can’t do it in robotic warfare.
We can’t always predict human behavior either so it’s just another exercise in wanting to kill or disable the enemy without taking any casualties on our side and the same will be true of enemy machines. Several sci-fi stories have been written about this “problem” including one story in the venerable Star Trek TV series where whole populations are destroyed based on the “winner” of a computer contest. A system designed to eliminate the costs of infrastructure destruction since it was just too costly to wage the wars conventionally.
Warfare, whether waged by humans or human designed machines, is simply the nature of the most prolific predator ever to evolve on earth and risks to “our” side and the innocents will never be eliminated. Risk versus gain is all that counts.

Whereas technological progress on how to attack in the battle are largely on track, what is missing is the practical management strategy to win the war. If Iraq war is any guide, the biggest constraints on winning the war are well documented, namely:

1. Willingness of armed personnel to engage in an activity that compromises their stated beliefs. The prime consideration is the feedback available to them via satellite mobile phones to cross check the tune their direct military bosses are singing and that espoused by the media world wide. In historical terms, those engaged in direct battle were either kept in sufficient misinformation about the reason why they were there at all and/or what risk elements they were exposed to or the aftermath of previous actions undertaken by them.This puts commanders in charge in a very difficult situation: how to keep the morale, discipline and overall military aims intact over the time of engagement
thus maximizing the possibilities of winning the war.

2.An even more important aspect is also laid bare why Iraq war could not be contained well within its stated budget and aim spectrum. Reason is the unavailability of sufficient land troops to man the territory won in single battles. This kept on bursting the action plans throughout the war, ultimately effecting the overall results.

3. A cheaper and far more effective method of conducting the war is simply blocking all disadvantageous access of any kind and even at the cost of having to indulge in unethical methodologies, making sure the desired outcomes are not effected in any way. Much different than the practices that were followed in successful campaigns like WW2, currently engaged troops expect to follow ethical practices as a minimum to stay involved: something that looks very good on paper but almost completely impractical when lives are at risk.

4. Lastly, its the justification of going to the war: political realities do not allow conveying to the troops why their services are required, without giving away the aims to be achieved by the governments concerned (did someone say controlling oil assets/trade routes control against winning democracy for Iraqians?)

History tells us that unless a direct advantage can be brought to those directly risking their lives, nothing can be forced in the long run. Enticement has to include a sharp upswing in their fortunes if they succeed. Nothing of that sort would be there, whether the dreaded UAV’s bring home the bacon or it is won by the dint of life risking undertaken by those responsible for manning the won over territory.

And where are that many troops in the first place to do the job? Recruitment lines are getting shorter by the day. But the need is to supply enough armed troops to man the territory, does not matter how one does it.

There have been no world wars since the advent of the A-bomb. When war means mutually assured destruction, people avoid it. At the other end of the spectrum, when war becomes painless for one party, that party will hardly hesitate to use its capability in times of conflict.

On a slightly different note, I believe that after the first few successful robot-enabled bank robberies and/or terrorist attacks, private robots operating in public venues will become highly regulated if not entirely outlawed. (Such regulation may not be entirely successful.) It’s the criminals in our own midst we better start worrying about now, not so much the robot warriors duking it out in the Afghanistan’s caves and other conventional battlefields.

Well, the war has simple goals : either killing people either taking ressources (including land) from people (who actually need it to survive so would risk their lives for it), so when the robots will end fighting each others, if they actually do (hackers gonna be next special ops in such wars) I would bet the remainings of the winning side would attack people.. It takes more than a loss of canned soldiers to give up what is precious, and let’s face it, if you do not want the loser to be able to retaliate u need to do more than destroying robots..
So I do not mean robots will not fight each others one day, but do not expect to make the war like a video game, it will only be a preliminar before u lose some of those u love : being killed by a machine or a human leads to the same path.
Concerning the the costs of infrastructure destruction, power is more important than money for our leaders and i do not mention ideological or religion wars where the money counts only as a way to have weapons and not as a goal.

I have to disagree with the comments regarding the predictability and control-abilty of robot behavior. Predictability becomes harder as systems become more intelligent. For example: how can a programmer predict behavior when the program is allowed to change its own code to adapt to its experiences in the field (machine learning)?

I think that control-ability by an operator will become a bigger issue when threat identification by robots becomes better. Because receiving a go-ahead from a human could cause a significant delay in a life-or-death situation, I could see a compelling argument for eliminating this safeguard in some situations.

Predators could be so effective protecting merchant ships from pirates off Somalia. Have some Predators always airborne in the area and when a ship’s captain radios that he’s under attack, the Predator flys to the ship, verifies the targets with its cameras, and with one hellfire missile, the pirates are vaporized. Seems so simple to me.

Old techhnology is cheaper and can still do a better job.
You give me a 10,000 bi-planes that are fully armed along with a thousand good pilots and that squadron would put any drone to shame and at the same time do a thousand times the damage to terrorists.

Robots totally make sense for advanced ground and air scouts. I’m surprised there aren’t robots vehicles at the front of convoys to trigger off IEDs. How much control do you need – steering, pedals and gears? It might cost just a few thousand dollars to retrofit an old vehicle. The basic functions can be pre-programmed so the controlling personnel can focus on not accidentally driving over people.

The problem is that armies of robots will be directed by an elite few and will have no ethical qualms about attacking anyone. Totalitarian regimes have always invented creative reasons that many, many ordinary free people who fail to bow in submission are “subversives” and must be eliminated. A reign of abject terror always results.

The robots will move rapidly into policing peacetime populations.

It is not so much the evil intentions of rulers that we must fear. It their impaired psychological and moral development and their unconsciousness of their own actions that will harm us. The adaptive psychopaths are the same ones with the control freak energy it takes to rise to and seize high level power. It takes a vigilance that humankind has never displayed to prevent this.

Robots have no autonomous conscience. They will make Hitler’s Third Reich look downright civilized.

While I agree with you that the preservation of our soldiers lives should be a high priority, we must not overlook the possibility that advances in robotics and artificial intelligence will lead to semi-sentient killing machines. If we remove the moral human element that governs them in the name of expediency it could lead to untold consequences. Can you imagine a robot with a software glitch that turns on the soldiers it is supposed to protect because it mistook them for the enemy. Worst yet as these things grow and learn we will need to retain some form of control over them.

Asimov would be sickened by modern military robots which make a mockery of his three laws. Actually, it’s a good bet all the geniuses who’s work is being corrupted to create these moral obscenities would be. My favorite part of the article is when it mentions increased computer involvement in planning as well as executing warfare. Add a little AI and you’ll have Skynet for real. Far fetched? Not really, since AI is the only lacking element. And you know the military will be stupid enough to add it, as soon as they see a possible military advantage. Only a matter of time, really.

One should not forget about all the nuclear weapons (or future new weapon technology likely even more devastating than the ones we currently have – don’t forget about biological warfare technologies) that will always be present and be a factor in any future war, robots included or not. Will humankind ever allow robots to make the decision to press the nuclear button (or activate some super virus escape mechanism), and lead to the destruction of Earth and/or humankind (if we haven’t colonized other planets yet)? Don’t say no yet, as robots may well take over in some way at some point. How can one prevent any of these wars of robots as envisioned by other posters from escalating into an all-out war, including using, of course, all the weapon technology at humankind’s disposal (or at robots’ disposal – if they had already taken over at that point)? Any of the warring parties may not even need to have the means to deliver such weapons over to the other party’s territory – all they need to do is make sure that it explodes (or in the case of a super virus, simply allow it to escape)– anywhere – and humankind will cease to exist. There seems to be a good likelihood that self-replicating intelligent robots will still exist in the universe after all humankind has been destroyed, as robots are more likely to survive the super virus, if not nuclear weapons. Will robots even care about whether humankind survives or not?

So far I haven’t seen the head of Osama Bin Laden on a plate…did any of you? How does bringing down whole mountains with uber-explosives accomplish making sure someone is a) Dead, and most importantly b) Prove it to everybody beyond a shadow of a doubt…?

If investing countless millions of dollars in high end military gadgetry was genuinely useful to win wars, then the US should have obliterated any opposition in Iraq, Iran, Palestine and Afghanistan and anywhere else by now – with no casualties and inflicting the least amount of damage to infrastructure and civilian populations.
That is not the case. Guerrillas in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven to be resilient despite of their limited access to the type of high level of the american technology.
Seems like guerrilla men are a hands-on type of people who have vastly higher amounts of realism in their heads and use well whatever technology they put their hands on.

Any american military leaders who foolishly buy ultra-expensive gadgetry thinking they’re fighting the Klingons are sadly mistaken or are getting a cut of the profits. At this point in time, the line between private and the US Army is so blurred, you’d think they’re one and the same, except for whom they’re intended to serve.

The russian defence contractors are selling cheap inflatable balloons that do the job while the american military is constantly buying billion-dollar *stuff* that doesn’t necessarily help the men on the ground – who are the ONLY way to secure territory and assure victory.

A propos, just recently I had a garage sale to get rid of all the kitchen gadgets that were supposed to help me chop, slice and cook food without getting my hands dirty. Since purchased and used once, they remained inside a cabinet taking up precious room until there was no more room and my wallet left emptier. I should be less willing to trust the salesmen who claim their latest electrical onion chopper will simplify my life, especially when the gadget can’t be put into the dishwasher.
Having a knife and a cutting board is far easier, after all.

I think too many defence contractors are meddling in the affairs of nations far beyond acceptable and it’s about time to cut their meddling down to manageable size. I know the GDP of certain whole nations owes a lot to the american military buying their stuff but there are other products that could be created instead of killing machines and that would be just as profitable. It depends on what is in the heart of the manufacturers, isn’t it?

Robots taking over the world, been watching a few too many Hollywood movies.

The reality is the current state of the art robots are not that dissimilar to remote controlled toy cars. So those ethics questions should be directed at the military commanders and not over hyped robots

And complex systems aren’t new to the world, thousands of people trust their lives to them every day. How many millions of lines of code keep a 737 in the air?

Coming from IT background, I can predict countries making robot will be most affected by its misuse. Hacking robot will be as easy hacking a computer. Believe me some one must be already waiting for USA to make such robot so they can turn them against USA.

Well when one looks at how the partisan politics in DC and most state, county and city government “operates”, seems we already have a study group at hand.
The drones and droids in place in our “hallowed halls” and elected offices are a classic study group for mindless robots following mindless partisan and special interests and “$-sign” “programing”?

Moral dilemmas aside, the biggest problem that see is one of Horror. What is the point of a war? To force another person or political body to abide by your rules — to do what you want them to do — or die. As Patton said “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” Once you take the dying out of it, for one or both parties, you take the Horror out of what you are doing — it becomes just another video game it becomes… entertainment. For the side controlling the robots at least. Who cares if a robot gets destroyed or has arms or legs amputated? We can just put it back together again or build a new one and send it out again. Without the destruction and killing of ones soldiers it becomes easy for political bodies to declare war on each other. Why consider alternatives to war — why peace? War is easier. No one dies on our side. The enemy still ends up dead. Win – Win, right?

Ethics – Will you accept fighting this unit in the battlefield?
yes = it is acceptable to make,
no = it is unacceptable to make.
For this question you need to consider yourself as the target.

Capabilities – How difficult would this be to block/kill for a human
fighting the unit?
What is the intended target and what “style” of combat employed?

Communications – command->response time-delays?
How susceptible to communications takeover/blocking is the unit?
If it has a human controller then it is a variation of a vehicle
transport and being representative(game piece) of the controller

Independant operation ? – this requires a level of programming
far higher and possibly in excess of a single processor unit.
(Multiple Independant Dedicated Processors with internal network)
The Ethics of this system is a reverse engineering debate as well

What processor finally pushes the fuzzy value for “shoot to kill”
into the “action zone” where it is permitted to go beyond target
recognition into actively killing the target?

How much detail is required?

personally I see this as not a single program but a stack result.
there are certain combinations of the Internet TCP/UDP/IP4/ICMP2
protocol stack results that *never* map due to non-occurence.

Development Security? – Hack the Development for self protection
best network security is no network (isolate the development)

When the prototype unit behaves as required, throw real humans
and *mandate* they attempt to break the units behaviour

Isaac Asimov had the robot psychology simplified,
Robert Heinlein went towards part of human psychology

I personally consider the situation as an asymetric problem.
any solution includes the person creating the solution as part.

Ive deliberately skipped a lot of details due to space.

I personally see combat requiring mixed forces at the non-ground
troop levels.

I also see “ground troops” having negative contacts with AI troop
movements when they meet in most situations entirely by training

unless there is some kind of standard recognition, but this will
require long-range sensors on the automated units.

my personal opinion on the whole matter is an automated army being
easily susceptible to mis-use of the command structure.
(all modern military suffer from this susceptibility imho)
I’m not learned of modern strategy and tactics outside video games

This requires further debate and a definite clear strategy as
any forward production or front-line equipment needs to improve
the battlefield for the military using it.

Existing technologies have expanded on or integrated with existing
military structures, future successes will be either following
a similar path (becoming integrated) or need to deliver
an “out of the ordinary” military capability that is not one-time
usable and is excessively effective.

a “capture” instead of “kill” mentality may be better serving,
“capture” of enemy units for re-programming or re-use as parts.
instead of flat destruction.

a more difficult strategy but also providing a higher reward.

capture of combatants and civilians and post-capture sorting
would also work to eliminate the collateral damage costs.

Designing a robot that can decide who and when to kill is dangerous. I work on computers for a living, and they often fail for many reasons. They have hardware failures and software bugs. They may be sensitive to heat or cold.

How can a robot tell who the “enemy” really is? If a robot meant for a war in another country were to get loose in America, how would it know the people it encounters are those it is suppose to protect?

This idea sounds like a bad sci fi movie. I wonder how long it will be before someone tries to infect battlefield robots with a computer virus?

There are many weapons of war that have been banned by civilized countries. This should be one of them.

Absolutely fabulous. We should build more of these and keep them flying over Afghanistan and Palestine at all times. The idea about using them to kill Somalia pirates is even better. Keep up the good technology!

Robots can aid and assist in combat, therefore relieving or helping certain aspects of a soldiers duty. But, robotics technology will never get to a point to replace soldiers. Mankind as a whole has always used tools and weapons as a means of fighting, and robots are just another level of weaponry that we are using. Robots are programmed to do what the programmer wants it to do. A human programmed it to do it; the concept of AI is of huge debate, but since true AI is near impossible to achieve (at least by current technology), and even pseudo-AI isn’t really AI (still only programmed by humans) I don’t see any robot replacing a good soldier with the instinct and the intuition to fight in real combat, anytime soon.

Hmm. Stunned, eh. I guess we can affirm that technological innovations always result in just the changes intended and nothing besides. Probably the Catholic who invented movable type would dispute this to take an obvious example.

The people most sanguine about technology generally know nothing about its history, which is just one reason that we are not nearly bright enough, as a civilization, to be making these kinds of gadgets.

The Palestinians should receive much of the credit for advancing the technology behind these UAVs. Israel pioneered the use of drones in combat, and the IDF still uses the people of Gaza as unwilling test subjects within its laboratory. Concerns about deploying them against trapped and terrorized civilians are of no significance.

Just like any other defense industry, Israel is more interested in profit margins and getting countries like the U.S., Russia, and India to endorse these instruments of death. It won’t be long before scantily clad IDF personnel appear in seedy adverts, running their hands repeatedly along the drone’s sleek exterior, masturbating their latest creation.

“Robot warriors are only as dangerous as the amount of ammunition you give them, so, limit the ammo.” : the same can be told for human then no ? moreover who would cap his own weapon ? if you fear havoc, you do not call the dogs of war.. now you can easily order a machine to strike at certain geographical locations via sat, but on a place where friends and foes are mixed (i assume soldiers may have electronic device to identify emselves but i would bet civilians wouldn’t in most of the case) what would happen ?
To finish i would say that most of what i read here is people still looking backward :
If you want to invade a country to expand your borders or grab natural ressources, of course risk versus gain is the key and nuclear strike is dissuasive but do you not notice world is changing ?
First occident power is fading because it did not learn lesson from History (fall of Rome) and other ideological leaders want to control the world, not for money, but for the glory of either their god, either their own ideology (notice i do not mention races here, which would be another debate).
Then, gold or oil are ressources which used to be the ones people were fighting for, but now water is becoming a much bigger issue… You may not want to die for gold or for oil that anyway you would never touch, but what if your family is dying from lack of water ? would you consider it as a choice if you are certain to die whether you fight or not ?
All that to say you guys should stop thinking only about the monetary cost of the war.. some people need other things more important even if it is really hard to understand for us…
(sorry for my bad english)

The day is soon coming when computer technologies, robotic technologies and nano technologies will combine to make the most lethal combination in all of human history. Intelligent robotics with the ability to manufacture their own weapons of choice wherever and whenever they so choose. Imagine a robot that is able to reload its cache of weapons made from nano bots (who manufacture them from minerals and atoms at the moleculure level) working in concert with its main computer. Then we will see devestation like no other time on Earth.

I don’t see where the advantage of robots would be in cases where both sides have them. That would just be a war of robots fighting eachother which doesn’t seem to have a point. Humans might as well fight eachother in a virtual reality video game.
The advantage is only in situations when one side has robots and the other doesn’t. Robots can take over tasks that are to dangerous for humans (e.g. clearing minefields or in certain reconnaissance or assasination missions). Note: I wouldn’t qualify the Predator attacks as ‘combat missions’ this is more an assasination mission.
Robots remain machines and if used militarily they are just weapons. So the responsibilities of humans remain the same as today.
Besides, everything that can be programmed can be hacked.

Even if these bots were already intelligent enough, robust enough, and mass-produced, it would not necessarily give the decisive edge to more technologically advanced countries. It just would make the warfare more asymmetrical.
Examples? Plenty of them. US/NATO in Afghanistan, Israel in Gaza – just to name a couple. One side perfectly equipped with the latest tech to inflict enormous damage, but unwilling to do so, and even less willing to take casualties. The other side has only crude weapons, but bent on inflicting as many casualties as possible at any price to their own. So far conflicts like these resulted in stalemate, with the less advanced side always claiming victory because even if they killed just one on the other side they already achieved their goal, whereas even if they’re left with that proverbial last man standing they denied the adversary their goals, no matter what the overall balance.
Now imagine the less advanced side getting even the crudest WMD. It’s not too far-fetched an idea.
A Japanese sect already manufactured Sarin and used it for mass murder in Tokyo. How long would it take to the likes of Taleban and Hamas to repeat the feat? What use are all the super sophisticated robots against an innocent-looking car loaded with explosives and nerve gas driven by a suicide terrorist, or a similarly equipped small plane?
Kim probably already has a few nukes (comparable to 1940s vintage US tech), and only needs to figure out the rocketry part (based on 1950s vintage Soviet tech) to get a complete WMD system. Iran is getting dangerously close to that. Just one warhead getting past the defenses will negate all Western edge in robotics by inflicting casualties deemed unacceptable by today’s Western standards.
If Obama achieves his stated goal of complete nuclear disarmament, the whole world will be at the mercy of any madman (Ahmadinejad being the prime candidate) who quietly manages to build WMD capacity and then loudly declares it, together with a laundry list of political demands. And then expect the West to give up to his demands despite all the technological edge, simply because a nuke wiping off Manhattan, or a ton of nerve gas released in Paris would be deemed too much of the price to pay. If there’s one thing that can possibly keep the madman at bay, it’s the guarantee of him and his people being annihilated in response. Worked against the Soviet Communists. Though may fail against Ahmadinejad if his declarations of the whole Iran willing to achieve martyrdom are not just a figure of speech.

Having recently watched the final episode of Battlestar Galatica, this article make me pause and think if a Cylon could actually be in our future. The beauty (or anxiety) of Hard Science Fiction is the concept that if a mind can conceive it, eventually it can achieve it. Most likely it will be a different generation of humans that build a Cylon clone but I suspect it will happen. The other question to ask would be can a Battlestar space craft be long behind a Cylon clone, but that would be a different story altogether.

You did fail to mention the PTSD type of mental health issues of the folks that have to pull the trigger of the drones, that in video game style are killing and destroying life and property of the targets the drones are sent to destroy. A Cylon might be better suited to pull these triggers to avoid the damage now inflicted on these remote drone pilots of today. Just another issue to deal with to avoid the damage of seeing the destruction of the drones up close.

Personally I would like to scrap a UAV or an UMAV than someone’s son or daughter and i think that is the whole point of robotics. I believe that human evolution is reaching a stage where we question why should we fight and kill over arguments that are petty?

Note so many seem to kind of recommend this “robot war machines”. Just have them cruise about on land or sea or air and use some hit tech killing ammo to do the job.
But most seem to forget one tiny little detail.. Remember when OBL posted way back, “I want the USA to get into war in Mideast, it will get bogged down and financially ruined. etc”
So far OBL seems to have only plan on Iraq, Afg that has worked. For the younger folks (under 45 or so) that skipped that “Boring ole history stuff as I am a techie and do not need it”, well you may be about to pay the price for such slovenly educations. During NAM the Sec Defense got all hot about “hi tech electronic wall across NAM etc etc is the way to win”. Well we know the results of that one, and for the less then informed, raq and more so Afg, are not to much more then another NAM, except no draft and no taxes to pay for them. Kind of entered USA into “wars of convenience to USA population and only few, mostly lower incomes end attend such things now days.
Now if all think “robots do it better” best ask the cost.. how much for one “Hellfire” or such rocket from a drone? How much for the robots, how much for the hi tech ammo and while sounds a bit cold, how much is it costing to kill one of the bad guys? I would guess we could probably drop the cost of one “hi tech bomb” on the bad guys and tell them “more on the way if you stop fighting” then the cost we pay for killing one and the additional “moral costs to USA” when the robot does an “oops got the wrong family” or such?
Seems like we cannot really afford, morally or financially, the “let the robot do it” killing machines. Know it sounds so clean, saves “USA lives-Troops etc”, but when we get to that point of “cost effective clean killing” we have lost. That one little guy out there in the bush with the AK47 or RPG, costs us how much to kill? And we must then ask, how many of them are there? Sorry while DOD and Pentagon so love the dollars for such toys, the financial, moral and autonomous “clean” of the killing machines will end up as another step down the slippery slope of failure the USA seems already going down. Lots of guys out there with the AK’s. and every time we “go hi tech”, we have lost, even Germany had “out tech’d the allies” and so far it seems OBL was right.
Want to win wars morally and physically and financially, bring back the draft and have the nation go to war, only then will we “win”, morally, financially and physically?

I am a fairly right-wing, hawkish individual, but I foresee several possible problems with autonomous robot warriors. In the best case, they may muck up and waste a bunch of civilians, and who then is to blame? Do you sue the company that built the robot? Do you sue the President? These are important questions.

Imagine that Osama bin Laden were located in Waziristan. Imagine that we sent a robot in to kill him, and imagine that it succeeds. Who killed bin Laden? Was it the remote pilot operating the drone? Was it the US Army?

In the gravest extreme, an army of autonomous, superintelligent warriors may well decide their own course of action. If they do, we can’t escape from them. We are mere bugs, trees to them.

What needs to be asked and answered is, “Is it wise to produce an army of indestructible warriors who can target an enemy in a millisecond?”

“Of all the endeavors of mankind, war is by far the greatest of follies. The injured parties losses are always multiplied and never indemnified.” (Thomas Jefferson) So why do we continue to fight wars? The reasons are many. Reducing the risk of the warrior to become a casualty is not the answer. A society with the ability to wage war with out casualty will become an agent of terror bringing death and destruction to those who are unable to defend themselves and possess something the aggressor wants or needs.

A war of machine against machine has no purpose. Ultimately all wars are fought over control of resources. Mineral, agricultural, industrial and human resources are some of the underlying causes of war. If the human cost of war is virtually eliminated it will become all to easy to resort to it’s use as a solution for needs other than self defense. Will we simply close our borders and send robots to take what we need from other lands and bring it all back to us? Will we ever live up to the concepts of the “Rights of Man” and the self determination of indigenous peoples?

In the end Sun Tzu prevails. If a society does not bend to the will of an overwhelming aggressor that society will be destroyed raising the risk of genocide as does atomic and other weapons of mass destruction. In the face of such destruction recruitment for violent resistance will escalate as well as terrorist responses. Sun Tzu councils this is the weapon of choice for those oppressed by overwhelming force.

At this late stage in the development of civilization war should be obsolete. How is it we except the necessity of war and simply argue how to wage it? The conflicts of this century can be traced to the wars of the last century. If humans do not find a better way to coexist on this planet, then our technology and war will make the human race and much of life on Earth obsolete.

I have a few problems with these stupid ideas. Robots need controllers which happen to be humans and so the usefulness of the robots are the function of the controllers. The robots can only follow orders. In the battle field, the situation is so fluid that contingency plan and to perform extempore depend on gut feeling and intuition which would be impossible for the controllers miles away without the real time nuanced knowledge to posses these intuitive reactions. In short, it will be the blind leading the blind. Am exercise in futility and failure to start with.
Another problem is the cost. Remember the smart bombs, how cost effective are they in combat. Raining 1000 smart bombs to a city could cost millions if not billion.
The US war in Iraq and Afganistan was labeled by Joseph Stiglitz as a 3 Trillions war. The US just can afford this.
So let have a collective cold shower: it is better to jaw jaw than to war war, stupid!
Trust me, as one of the translator of Sun Zi’s the war of war, my advice is peace not war.

I’m looking forward to the day when people of the world start doing to the US what it is doing around the world.
Realy can not blame anyone for any action against a US citizen found outside of the US. You can not trust them.

After reading this article, I would recommend anyone who hasn’t already, to check out Bill Joy’s(co-founder of Sun Microsystems) article for ‘Wired’ in April 2000 titled,
“Why the future doesn’t need us”
Bill Joy has quite a different take on the future of technology than Mr Debusmann.

Let’s get some Strategy 101 stuff straight – wars are not fought over resources. That is a highly simplified synthesis that fails to explain the majority of wars and campaigns of human history. Consider this: why are we in Afghanistan? Is there an international shortage of carpets and exotic nuts? Yep, apart from opium, that is their official national products (there is no oil… no, really – there is no oil). Why did Germany invade Greece during WWII? Not enough olives and feta cheese to go around for everybody? And why the current conflict in Gaza? Is sand and rubble now a vital commodity?

No… war is the continuation of foreign policy by other means. Wars are fought because the alternative avenues of foreign policy execution (e.g. diplomacy) are no longer considered viable to bring about a desirable political outcome.

And what will those “other means” be? The sacrifice of human lives? Is it a matter of “We’ve killed more of you than what you have killed of us, therefore we win and we’re going home now?” Once again, this is an over-simplification. Did the US win the war in Vietnam? Did the Imperial Japanese forces win the battle of Iwo Jima? No… on both accounts (and there are thousands more examples), the side that had lost the most lives, was the side that had ‘won’ (however you wish to define that).

So why is that? You need two things to conduct a war successfully. The Military Means, and the Political Will. You need both… having just one will not cut it.

Let’s consider the easy one, Military Means. Simply put, this is the ability to put a force of appropriate composition and size, with the right training and the right equipment, at the right place, at the right time, ready for the tactical challenges it may face. There are a number of key words here, so let’s deal with them quickly –

Composition: send a pure infantry force into open rolling terrain with no armour support, and you’d better increase your body bag budget.
Size: send 100 men to do the work of 1000, and you’d better start composing those letters of condolences.
Training: send those specialist Tundra Mountain troops into Libya, but don’t expect too many to come back home.
Equipment: send your troops, armed only with knives into a gunfight and lose the next election. But send your troops, armed with guns, into a knife fight?

Ok, since we know that the Western Allies have all of the above, and we clearly have the Military Means, why aren’t we finding these wars a walk in the park?

On to the tough one then… Political Will. And that is “you”. The politicians you vote for, the papers you read, the news channels you watch, the comments you make by the water cooler, the rallies you attend, the blog contributions you write. That is “you”, stating in 2003: “I will no longer drink French wines because when we asked them to join us in purging Iraq of WMD, they described it as a folly…” And in 2009? Do you now “know” what the French “knew” in 2003? And those flag-covered coffins… don’t you just hate the sight of them?

Now how can I put this politely… The problem with modern warfare is… lack of Political Will, therefore – you. You are the problem. You want the President to wear boots, but you do not want flag-covered coffins. You want a nice stand-off war, the type of thing you can watch while having your TV dinner, quick resolution, no own casualties. You want “Rambo VI: Johnny does Teheran.” And all of that “want” floats up to the top… and then showers down on the Military Planners. So back to Military Means.

Those key concepts of above? They relate to one another… they interact. As a simple example: we have two stretches of the front, each 10 km wide that needs to be patrolled. Put in men on foot, and it will take two patrols (let’s say of 10 men each) 3 hours of hard marching to execute. And then 3 hours to get back. That is 6 hours that these twenty men are unavailable for any other task. So let’s replace that 20 men with 10 men on mountain bikes. Now 10 men can do the job of a force twice their size… they can patrol both stretches in the same time. We can now use the other 10 men for another task, or even send them home. In this example, the mountain bike is referred to as a “force multiplier”: which is what it does… it allows a force of 10 men to do the work of 20 men. And there are many examples of “force multipliers” in warfare and military equipment. We accelerate mobility and boost fire power, enabling one man to do the work of many. But in the end, a mountain bike on its own will not patrol the front. It is only a multiplier… not a force.

Don’t think of “robots” in terms of Terminator-styled AI enabled cyborgs only… that is once again too simplified (and still very much Sci-Fi anyway). A practical example, auto-loaders have allowed the Russians to reduce their tank crews by one member – they only need three crew members per main battle tank, whereas Western MBT’s need four crew members. For an Armoured Division (with circa 350 tanks), that is 350 less people needed to operate the equipment – enough to create another battalion. And so, UAV’s replace the 10 men on mountain bikes, future tanks could have auto-loaders and remote drivers (but perhaps still have gunners and commanders), pilotless planes will criss-cross over the theatre. Will we be assured of winning wars? Errrm, there is still that little issue of Political Will – and all of this automation does not include a replacement of you. So… no, probably not.

Two things are for certain though: as much as nuclear weapons did not pan out to be the “final weapon” of warfare in the previous century – but served a vital role in the determination of force composition, equipment and training, so too will battlefield automation shape (and even dominate) future warfare… but never as the “final weapon” – only ever as a force multiplier.

And finally, the harder you holler for quick, clean, easy warfare, the more battlefield automation will increase… and the cost. We will get the same outcome though – in the same way as modern PC’s are as slow as their 1990′s predecessors.,, just more capable.

Opium is a pretty big reason to fight wars. It has happened before, you know? Too bad the countries that consume the most and have invested most heavily in its production and export are claiming to be the most righteous and civilized, such as the UK and the USA.

As a small reminder let me say that Afghanistan has more than carpets to sell; it is the major supplier of lapis lazuli in the world and also is potentially one of the greatest suppliers of both semi and precious gems in Asia. The mountains of this country hold a great wealth in marble and granite alone and certain precious stones can only be found in Afhganistan, as certain colors of marble and granite too. The quality of its turquoise has been recognized for centuries. Lapis and turquoise have been one of the most prized exports to the Middle East and Europe – both for jewelry and for artwork.
In fact, poppy growing for drugs is but one way to make money. The mountains are ideal for thrill seekers from around the world who simply wish to climb them – tourism is a golden opportunity that will not allow itself to be denied for much longer.
There are some beautiful forests there that would be making more money if tourists were brought in rather than if pakistani lumber companies clear-cut them. But still, good quality timber is a well sought after product.
Perhaps it’s the overall lack of information about Afghanistan that has us imagining it as an ugly place with nothing but warlords, opium and poverty to give to the world.
Certainly, the Soviets thought it was worth burying a few of their comrades over it and remain at war for a while.

To say that all wars are about resources is absolutely correct. It’s all the junk like religion or other media garbage that is used to hide that fact. Afghanistan has perhaps more to offer than Gaza ever will and I agree that occupation of Gaza territories should end because there are no resources for Israel to exploit…right?

About the USA morality of the Hi tech weapons. Care to measure the USA morality on use of hi tech weapon systems? Remember Iraq War 1, when “USA is victorious” which was about 200% assured ahead of time.
Iraq was in truth a zero rated power. Unfortunately for them, a Bush and “the old R guard” was looking for a bit of “Pay back” to Iraq-SH, our FORMER MID EAST ALLIE, AKA SH. Set up was our Ambassador kind of shrugged shoulders when SH asked about our intentions in region verse his intentions in region.
USA officially, as world watched, know of gave a “not our concern” response, Kissinger Inc and ole Henry dropped by, picked up check for %600K for “services”. Rumsfield had been photographed shaking hands with SH,(hmmmm, now the R’s howl about Obama and Venezuela Pres shaking hands???)
Since appeared none really cared,SH moved Iraq on Kuwaitt, suddenly Exxon, Mobile, Saud’s et al, called their “former employees now employed in DC-big campaign money recipients, and tossed a few million to bobby and PR folks. Congress did it thing, had a little girl lie on floor of congress about “they took babies from incubators etc”, sob/tears. Great theater but nearly entire press and congress knew she was the Kuwaiti’s Ambassador’s daughter in USA entire time, was never there, but it played well on spin cycles in media’s.
Ole USA, needed to show world how tough we were, after all DOD was spending billions of billions, for what” Pols’ pontificated, media spun, DOD-DC-oil all beating war drums, pushing. “Green light” went on, DOD shoving to get media as to how great they were, shot everything they could find, even sub launched missiles at Irag. DOD contractors saw billions for this one. The spin, patriotic music and all the 30 sec bits of our hi tech killing was kind of a war version of “American Idol” as to which systems we liked best. That stealth fighter won as was “really hi tech” but have competition from the errie glow of missiles launched, and tanks lined up at border. And.. of course we had all sorts of stuff on “Patriots knock down Iraq scuds, which never happened but made great press and Raytheon stock went up. We watched the tapes on TV and waved our little USA flags imported from China, with great vigor.
It seems we blamed SH when we “Oops”, dropped “smart bomb” down building and killed a few hundred innocents, prior to that, same “opps” was “look how that neat ole bomb went right down the elevator shaft”.
Our military whom must have a Division of two just to do such things, never one to miss a new phrase, gave us “collateral damage”. No doubt, some General looking for one more star felt “Oops we killed some (more) civilians by mistake” had solution! The world was introduced to the “USA world of hi tech killing machine’s Oops” as “Collateral damages”. Much cleaner and vague, as if “we lent them something and they did not pay it back, so we bombed our “Collateral” etc or some such twisted thing.
Had any studied history the might remember Spain’s civil war when Hitler’s Germany “helped out with then “hi tech”. Reader might find many felt it was more a test of Hitler’s, for his day, new hi tech weapons and related as did USA in Iraq 1. NOTE WW2 Germany out tech’d the allies by any measurement, but lost? So one might almost compare the testing in Spain to the first Iraq shooter”s when all the data is laid out and looked at. We note the similiarity between USSR and USA in AFG, only reason USSR got hit was we furnished hi tech SAM’s etc to our then buds, the Taliban, which we created and supported.
We also established “collaterial damage” as buzz word for innocents killed, which stunned the civilized world. But the REAL MORAL evaluation of our “hi tech” was when General S, in really happy mood for “kicking their butts” ran his little tape showing a $3K army truck on a bridge in Iraq getting taken out by our $500K (plus) “smart bomb” dropped by our multi-million dollar fighter.
He pointed at it being blown up with some poor private or such in it, as he and staff, and probably most of USA laughed as ole USA, now victorious over SH etc etc. We told world,laughed at and admired the hi tech kill, explained “Looks like he (driver) had a bad day”.. laugh, laugh laugh”.
There was some bits of morality, later in “The War” it was reported some pilots refused to attack Iraq’s headed home in trucks, cars etc from Kuwait in massive traffic jam. called a “turkey shoot” as they did not consider them dangerous to anyone. A few moral warriors left, and for those that never served, quite often the combat people whom respect the other side, not the desk warrior. “Mr. Charles” was a respectful term for VC and such during NAM, used by the “grunts”.. who often said “they are good”.. admittedly not like in the movies or DC or “briefings” but it was the reality of combat.
So we again, as in NAM’s “hi tech electronic wall”, which kileed lots of water buffs’, USA AGAIN introduced to the “new hi tech warrior machines”. The Pentagon and DC remembered what truth did to the NAM, no more “Reality stuff”, instead “USA laughed along with hi tech war”.
Now days in this neat new “clean war” we are show IR photos from drones of folks being taken out by rockets, bombs etc”, This now kind of “newsy” and fun to see like some PC game, about as clean as we can make war. There is ofo course that nasty, the occasional “oops” which morally explained away as “price they (oopsr’s) pay for being around the bad guys. So the justifications and morality of using the “killing robots etc” by us is well established.
War is not attended nor even paid for by most now days in USA. Rather to most here a laugh or admiration of how “good we have got” here in USA. War is just “ultimate fun reality show”, despite “oop’s and all” which we can then morally vote off the show?

Ah Wave that Dan, you are of course referring to the Opium Wars (or the Anglo-Chinese Wars) fought from 1839 to 1842 because China did *not* want the British to smuggle opium into China. So that is kind of a negative resource war… the Chinese didn’t want it. But still, I grant you that there had been a war fought over opium in the past.

So tell me… do you really believe that we are waging a war in Afghanistan over opium? As a resource? Really?

You must have heard of the Taliban? By the way, from 2001, under Taliban rule, Afghanistan hardly produced any opium. So why are we in Afghanistan? Is it because we want opium? Or don’t we? I’m confused now. If this war is about us not wanting opium, we should just let the Taliban take control again – war over. If the war is about us wanting opium… now there is a conspiracy theory for you. Why would the Western governments spend so much money and effort in keeping opium and its derivatives off the streets?

So maybe it is the lapis lazuli then. “We’re going in boys… gotta keep that lapis lazuli flowing.”

Or perhaps Wave that Dan… you will recognise that this conflict (and the vast majority of others) are not fought purely over resources. Life is really a lot more complex than that.

Finally, I was not attempting to belittle the country (or any country for that matter). I was making a point regarding the prevalent view that all wars are fought over resources. A point which, by the way, you lent a lot of credibility to with your references to coloured granite, marble and tourism. So there is no need to jump to Afghanistan’s defence. The discussion is about battlefield automation – not tourism and coloured granite.

There is one very important detail regarding the resources of the mining industry in Afghanistan. According to the Afghanistan’s Geological Survey – http://www.bgs.ac.uk/AfghanMinerals/mini nfo.htm
from which I take the liberty of cuting and pasting the following:

“There are two main areas prospective for uranium in Afghanistan that warrant further exploration. Arguably the more interesting is the Khanneshin carbonatite volcanic complex in Helmand Province. This is a Lower Quaternary domal structure with an intrusive carbonatite core 4 km across. Preliminary exploration has identified zones with rare earth enrichment and veinlets with bright yellow uraninite. Although this is the only carbonatite to be explored so far, other carbonatites are believed to exist in the area and a regional exploration programme is warranted. Airborne surveys in the 1970s also identified an area in Farah province, characterised by anomalous radioactivity.”

Again, it doesn’t necessarily have to do with robotics in the field of war, but Afghanistan also holds other vast resources like Tin-Tungsten, Mercury and Copper, that may be used to build parts for those futuristic military robots; and to power them Afghanistan also has lithium-rich deposits to be exploited.

Lithium has gained popularity as a battery component that can store a lot more power and last a lot longer than regular batteries, especially in the automotive world (Lithium-ion are rechargeable batteries; I would buy stock from the companies that manufacture them, especially since the US government is giving incentives to purchase hybrid vehicles). Lithium is also used in the pharmaceutical industry to control mood disorders (in the style of those early military attempts to create little human robots in the 1950′s, 60′s and 70′s)

How can robotics in the military be worth anything if the robots are not cordless and their batteries are not strong enough to enable long hours of performance? NASA’s robots on Mars use solar power but they were built for reconnaissance of an unhabited planet out in the open, not to kill martians hiding in caves.

The sci-fi in the military is mostly a PR stunt and good business for very high ranking officials. But the real deal going on is the one that is not mentioned in the news – even purposefully hidden from the general public. Who bothers to look for mineral information on Afghanistan when the Taliban seem to get the spotlight?

The majority of resources for the current level of consumption in the USA come from somewhere else. Mining in the USA is considered exhausted, not profitable or highly polluting and so it makes exploring and exploiting another country’s resources all the more urgent, not just for petroleum but for other minerals and metals as well.
So currently the USA is strongly defending its interests in Iraq (by ensuring control of 11% of the world’s oil reserves, second to Saudi Arabia only, according to the Britannica Online Encyclopedia, and by attempting to control Afghanistan’s mineral resources used in current hi-tech machinery and nuclear energy/weapons manufacturing. Of course other political considerations exist since Afghanistan is stuck between Iran and Pakistan. I feel sorry for the fine people of Tajikistan, stuck in the middle of all the crazies out there.

Quintin, I rather justify an invasion of a country as a grab for necessary resources than to use faulty intelligence and never getting the guy the troops were “supposed” to apprehend. The public humiliation of never having captured all suspects and the leader is a sign of defeat in the face of overwhelming force, not victory.

If trained personnel and expensive gear haven’t done it by now, that can only mean they never will and they’re simply ensuring mining exploration or heroin cultivation continues to make a profit to some general or major with an interest in the region, perhaps as far back as when the soviets were around, who knows?

Some very expensive robotics, satellite imagery and computerized technology is being used to fully evaluate just how much wealth there is in gemstones alone, let alone rare metals and uranium. Robotics are better used and with better results to exploit the wealth under the ground than warfare. If you have the resources in hand you win. No resources, no victory.

I think that the observations made in this article are a reminder that we are facing a rapidly changing world where we are seeing great benefits of technology, but also high risk implications in using them. Military robots are a technology that will definitely help make our efforts more precise and improve control over our objectives. Nevertheless, such technologies are another step forward into a grey zone which places Life and Earth at more and more risk for a number of reasons. For example, are robotics in the military just another step toward more powerful and precise weapons, not so much different than the hydrogen bomb when it was created. We must keep focussed on the real problem which is why we have conflicts in the first place and how we can negotiate our way through them. We cannot forget that technology, the robots, are just a tool, but in making them available and pursuing them do we really become pawns of our own technology.

Every day our capacity to influence our environment (global warming) or each other (nuclear conflicts/robot weapons) gets more and more significant as we pursue our technologies. Over the last 200 years we have experienced a technological revolution and in so we have become a race of super beings. As we pursue these technologies we have to remember not to be so sure of our selves that we can always turn back the clock and fix the repercussions of them. For example, as we have populated the world and increased our CO2 emmissions we find this product called global warming that may affect all Life and Earth in significant ways.

I think it is important we take from such valuable articles as this, a reminder that we are the ones responsible for the technologies that affect Life and our Planet for better and worse, and in so, we must remember that in moving forward with them we are accepting responsibility for the consequences of our actions. We are on a small fragile Earth that is becoming smaller every day as our technologies continue to advance. As important as it may be that we continue to expand our technologies, it is even more important that we recognize we are in a world changing in ways that have never occurred before. We need to focus on educating the world on working together, minimizing conflict, and moving forward with our technologies with extreme caution. This is new territory for us and we must reconsider how we behave as a species in order to deal with our new technological capabilities that are unfolding before us.

Sorry guys, Mr. Bernd Debusmann story based on ‘Terminator’ movies rather than on real facts.

1. For the begging all computer systems are created by many many teams not single person. 100′s teams are involved with CPU/storage/display etc. Software at least involves operation system (huge number of people) and actual application software. Why does he focus only on one team that write the actual program???

2. No field weapon system makes firing decision without human interaction. Nothing even comes close to such system. Even the most complex targeting systems can ‘keep eye on the ball’ but cannot pick a ball. All robots are nothing more as remote controlled toys with autopilot capabilities at best. Ballistic/cruise missiles have much high level of automation. The most dangerous systems are US/Russia ‘Ballistic shields’ that fielded for last 30 yrs. They have record of issued false alerts. Yet they escape Debusmann attention.

3. Debusmann story robotic of ‘rebellions’ in S.Africa is nothing more than misfiring. It has nothing to do implied machine conscious decision to harm human.

4. Current CPUs can crunch 1,000,000,000,000 arithmetic ops per second… but don’t suited well for fussy pattern recognition. That what humans do the best. Modern CPUs are at the level of insect/fish.

May be we will come to the point when machines recognize real life objects and make ethical decisions. But on this way world changes so dramatically that I would consult Asimov rather than Debusmann.

Where in the column is there a mention of one team that writes the actual program? Here’s the quote. Note “teams” (plural).

“Unfortunately, such a belief is sorely outdated, harking back to the time when computers were simpler and their programs could be written and understood by a single person,” the study says. “Now programs with millions of lines of code are written by teams of programmers, none of whom knows the entire program; hence, no individual can predict the effect of a given command with absolute certainty since portions of programs may interact in unexpected, untested ways.”

My apology Bernd,
I lack your talent to put complex thoughts in simple form :).
My aim was at common perception:
“harking back to the time when computers were simpler and their programs could be written and understood by a single person”.
- There is always single person.
- This single person never fully understands what is going on.
Now and then all programs stay on ‘shoulders of giants’ make use of components written by others. Programmers usually rely on components descriptions rather than go into implementation details. Despite common scene this approach makes systems more robust and single person today handles times more than 10 yrs ago. That brings us complexity of scale… Well, While I explain my point I understood yours :).

I hope my 3 main points stay:

1. Today combat robots just overblown RC toys… But they kill for real. No immediate danger to US public. I cannot escape that sound very unethical even to my non-liberal taste.

3. Any progress in technology to the scale that machine would be able recognize/identify/object and make conscious decision would change society to the point that we cannot foresee now.

Let me offer my favorite example on far reaching prognoses:
Back in 1890’s in booming Tzar’s Moscow. Somebody ran time series of growing number of horses vs. lagging number of street cleaners. In report, he extrapolated that by 1930 Moscow would be under 3ft of horse apples. I still cannot find any errors in his math…

My apology Bernd,
I lack your talent to put complex thoughts in simple form :).
My aim was at common perception:”harking back to the time when computers were simpler and their programs could be written and understood by a single person”.
- There is always single person.
- This single person never fully understands what is going on because he/she reuses components/technologies/devices created by may other people/teams.
Now and then all programs stay on ’shoulders of giants’ makes use of components written by others. Programmers usually rely on components descriptions rather than go into implementation details. Despite common scene this approach makes systems more robust and single person today handles times more than 10 yrs ago. That brings us complexity of scale… Well, While I explain my point I understood yours :).
I hope my 3 main points stay:
1. Today combat robots just overblown RC toys… But they kill for real. No immediate danger to US public. I cannot escape that sound very unethical even to my non-liberal taste.
2. We stay hostages of technology for at least 30 yrs. Complex automatic/semi automatic system controlling factories/plants/ballistic shields/ballistic missiles.
3. Any progress in technology to the scale that machine would be able recognize/identify/object and make conscious decision would change society to the point that we cannot foresee now.
Let me offer my favorite example on far reaching prognoses:
Back in 1890’s in booming Tzar’s Moscow. Somebody ran time series of growing number of horses vs. lagging number of street cleaners. In report, he extrapolated that by 1930 Moscow would be under 3ft of horse apples. I still cannot find any errors in his math…

A very thought provoking article.
AI is near impossible ? when one considers that even a lower lifeform than man in nature can be dangerous. AI is possible and the discussions about this need to commence ahead of the curve.

In Afghanistan Karzai is implementing some odious laws. That does not really matter. The point is that in a few years the war will be completely robotic. The US will be able to carry on indefinitely with zero casualties. Casualties among the Afghan population will however NOT be non zero.

I got feeling that in humans it varies greatly. We can give new robot new strong universal values. Well, may be we should we stick with old values?

Here is Bernd test:
“How do you get a robot to tell an insurgent from an innocent”. So far nobody can. 16 yrs old dead Taliban becomes dead kid because… he is 16 yrs old. But young fighter’s ruthless eclipse adults.
I can justify and support this war. But emotionally I cannot accept 100’s dead. Just sound: 100’s ethically killed.

My ethic just fails here. Lets step on ‘shoulders of giants’ and reuse somebody else ideas. Geneva Convention is the pinnacle of War Ethic.

After first read Geneva Conventions sound like naive pipe dream. Long “to do” list including cases when POW are eligible for salary. That salary is to match of your arm force.

Read Geneva Conventions again. They meaningless. They imply such level of interaction between adversaries that you cannot expect even between allies. Establish safe zone for civilians recognized by both sides.

Read once more… They make any military action against non conventional arm force next to imposable. Who are Taliban/Tamil Tigers/HAMAS and most Africans liberation armies? According to Geneva Conventions they ar either combatants or civilians. Practically they are bands of mercenaries ‘living from land’. They tax/racket local population while don’t pledge allegiance to any recognized state.

BTW West/US ethical values are not universal. Back to Afghanistan. I saw General Dustum spoke about Human Right Record of US Army. He is the guy who literally baked 10′s Taliban prisoners in Sea Containers under Sun once his prison run out of capacity.

Now I am back on 1930’s Moscow streets and prophesy about 3 ft of horse apples came true. Bernd please send me good ethical robot :). Or you no please send non-ethical one.

Another weapon system…?
Big Deal.
It’s really advanced…
Big Deal.
It has really scary potential…
Big Deal.
Just a small matter of history, a hundred years ago Dreadnought fleets were being launched in numbers. A huge change in military force levels, a massive revolution in sea power technology.
Result: a large reduction in naval fleet engagements in wars for the next century.
50 years ago, The Bomb. ‘We’re all gonna DIE!’ is a rather widespread reaction amongst the more excitable. What happens? The longest period of peace in Europe since the Romans.
Certainly didn’t see those coming at the time, now did they.
We’ll need a proper war where both sides have these systems to see how they’ll pan out. One thing’s for certain, no ‘expert’ or doomsayer currently has the faintest idea what that’ll be. Not because people are stupid, but because the predictive information necessary is way too complex to deal with.

Geneva Convention or not the terrible truth is we’ve never been able to fully agree what the rules of war are and we’ve certainly never really practiced them so the programs that run our increasingly sophisticated and lethal autonomous military robots are likely to be just as ethically flawed as we are as history shows that our belief in our cause and perceived proximity to victory or defeat generally dictates how our armies or ‘freedom fighters’ conduct themselves on the battlefield. Human beings are violent animals and if we ever manage to program intelligent autonomous robots to conduct our wars for us more ethically than we do they’d probably end up disarming and pacifying us. I suspect we’ll just see the most powerful sections of humanity merging with more powerful and lethal technology to lord it over the rest of us.

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World Affairs columnist Bernd Debusmann has reported from close to 100 countries, on stories from the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the seizure of American hostages in Iran to Lebanon’s descent into anarchy and the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. Debusmann was shot twice in the course of his work -- once covering a night battle in the center of Beirut and once in an assassination attempt prompted by his reporting.